To Hel And Back
by callushominis
Summary: Set after Drake's Deception and after TR: Underworld. Nathan and Sierra, a woman he met online, haven't had a job for months. Everything changes when they stumble upon Lara Croft and have to race to keep a powerful artifact from a power-crazed collector. THIS STORY IS DEAD.
1. Chapter 1

**The ****only ****characters ****I ****own ****in ****here ****are ****Sierra ****and ****ones ****identified ****at ****the ****beginning ****of ****each ****chapter****. ****All ****others ****belong ****to ****their ****respective ****creators****.**

**Sorry ****it****'****s ****a ****bit ****short****. ****I****'****m ****just ****setting ****up ****for ****the ****plot ****in ****these ****first ****few ****chapters****.**

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><p>Chapter 1<p>

I was beginning to wonder when Nate would get back out into fortune hunting. He'd just been researching things on the computer for weeks now, and had come up with nothing. I'd been doing the same thing and admittedly was getting no further than he had, but by now he would have hoodwinked a collector to hire us onto a museum bust or something.

I folded up a pair of Nate's jeans and gazed at the leather holster hanging on the wall, neglected. He still wore it under his jacket in the off-chance we ran into one of his old enemies, but that never happened anymore.

I slammed the drawer closed, and before I could grab another piece of clothing, I heard Nate shout from his laptop, "Sierra! C'mere! I think I got us a job!"

_Really__? __Or __was __this __another __false __alarm__? _I peered around the bedroom door and called, "Who's gonna hire us?"

"No one. I've just got a great idea. Come here and I'll tell you all about it."

I tossed the laundry onto the bed and joined him at the desk he and I shared. I pulled my chair next to his and said, "Just please bear in mind that I've only got so much money left from my old job."

"Aren't you still getting a pension-kinda-thing?"

"Yeah, but it's significantly lower than my old wage...unless you think about it as the seventy thousand pounds it is."

He gaped at me and said, "_That__'__s_ significantly lower than what you _were_making?"

I nodded and continued, "So what're we after now?"

"Hel's gauntlet."

"Hel as in the queen of the Norse underworld? I've never heard any myths about her own gauntlets. I've heard of Thor's, but not hers."

"That's the point," he opened his journal, pointing at a small passage as he handed it to me. I tried deciphering the rushed handwriting, but Nate continued, "She was being discreet about it, hence the incredibly obscure myth. The story says that when Odin banished Hel to the Underworld, she was so pissed off she forged two gauntlets. These gauntlet's gave anyone, _including__humans_, the power to raise the dead. If you've got one of them, you can raise them for two minutes and they're dead again, or if you have both you can raise as many people as you want for as long as you want them alive."

This sounded pretty familiar. I said, "Are we looking for both?"

"No. It's been almost guaranteed that one of 'em's already been destroyed within the past century or so. One guy got hold of both and with that year he was murdered. They both disappeared, and people have said one of 'em was destroyed."

"So that cuts our journey in half...I hope. D'you have any idea where to go first?"

He leaned back in the chair and brushed his hair back before answering, "You up for going to Southern Norway?"

"Sure. Let's just hope we find something there," I stood up from my chair and continued, "I'll start packing up some necessities..." I muttered to myself as I pushed my chair back, "I just hope I have enough thermals for the Arctic Circle..."


	2. Chapter 2

**Just bear with the odd point-of-view changes, I'm still working the kinks out of it.**

Chapter 2

"Right...this shouldn't be too hard."

Lara pulled the switch down and somersaulted under the door before the mechanism gave way and slammed the solid stone door down again. She stood up once more and brushed dust off her jacket-not that it mattered; the thing was a magnet for anything unsightly.

Hand resting on one of her pistols, she glanced around the crypt for any possible trap systems. As far as she could tell, there was nothing harmful around, so she relaxed a little and unhooked the torch from her belt. She flicked the switch on and thoroughly scanned the area for pressure pads, tripwires, trapdoors; anything that could deploy some sort of trap.

She pointed the torch down at the pedestal, but found nothing there. She thought to herself, _What the hell? It was supposed to be here! Don't tell me I'm too late!_

There _had_ to be something either inside the ornate stand, or it was somewhere written on the walls. She studied the pedestal, feeling around for a button that could reveal some secret compartment.

Nothing.

"Damn..." She scanned the walls once more, this time noticing the button on the far wall. But there wasn't a way to climb up to it and trigger the mechanism. Not that this was a problem. Lara drew one of the pistols from her legs and shot at the button, missing slightly. She pulled the trigger again, this time successfully hitting the button.

She heard the rudimentary mechanism begin to activate, revealing a secret passageway under the pedestal. "Now that's more like it..." Lara pointed the flashlight down the stairway that had been revealed as she slowly stepped down. She looked around the narrow corridor, noticing that the architecture that she could see definitely wasn't Andean. It looked Norse more than anything.

She muttered, "This is interesting..." and slowly stepped into another sort of crypt. She thought to herself, _What could be down here that needs so much protecting?_

As she moved the torch across the walls, some of the images in the walls seemed to shimmer when the light hit them. In the corner of her eye, Lara thought she saw one of them continue to glow.

"Is this some sort of puzzle?" She noticed that the carvings were depicting various parts of the final battle of Ragnorok. Her train of thought began wandering off into what she remembered from the story: Thor used Mjolnir to destroy the Midgard Serpent once and for all. But these carvings showed details of the battle that Lara had never heard of before.

It seemed to be that she would have to guess her way through this time. She sighed and pointed her torch all over the wall, hoping that this would activate an unlocking mechanism.

After moving the light over every image, she switched the light off and studied the wall, waiting to see if her guess was correct.

The images glowed brighter for about a second, and a deep _rumble_ began to sound...Hopefully this wasn't a booby trap meant for those who failed the puzzle. The explorer watched intently as the wall slowly separated into two segments that moved away from each other just enough to allow an average-sized man through.

The passage was pitch black. Lara flicked the torch on again and shone it through the doors to check for any traps.

When she was absolutely sure it was safe, she took her hand off her pistol and serenely continued into the newly revealed room.

This time the plinth in the center of the room actually had what she'd been looking for: a strange, as-of-yet unknown artefact. Miss Croft smiled and sauntered toward it, wary of a pressure pad that could trigger a defense mechanism of some sort, slicing her head clean off or riddling her with rudimentary arrows. She murmured to herself, "_What is this thing? This is definitely Norse in origin._"

The artefact in question was a metal gauntlet that was still gleaming like it had been made only weeks before. Lara studied it more closely, seeing the intricate designs etched into the surface. These designs seemed to tell a story of some sort. As far as Lara could tell, the series of etchings containing a large, hideous woman were probably telling a story related to the ruler of the Norse Underworld, Hel. What Lara assumed was the first etching looked somewhat like five people: Loki, Angrboda, an infant, Jormungandr, and the Fenrir wolf. The infant was half dark-coloured and half light-colored, a telltale sign that it must have been Hel.

A vine extended from this etching and swam through dozens of leaves, stopping at another etching of Hel. She was a grown woman this time, and a one-eyed god-Odin-appeared to be chastising her for something, probably her appearance. This bit of Hel's story was a lot more familiar to Lara: The moment Odin banishes Hel to be the ruler of her own personal realm of the Nine Worlds, Helheim. Hel was known for not being particularly attractive, what with her skin being half dark and half light and any beauty she had was only on the lighter part of her.

Then, a final etching showed Hel sitting upon a dark misty throne, her face triumphant as she wore two gauntlets resembling the one the image was engraved upon. Lara asked herself, "_This didn't happen...is it some obscure myth no one bothered to write down?_"

She checked the plinth for a pressure pad before gently picking the artefact up and placing it into her rucksack. She waited for a few seconds for a defense mechanism to deploy, but nothing happened. She let go of the breath she'd been unknowingly holding and retraced her steps to get out of the crypt under the abandoned Norwegian cathedral.

Upon throwing the front doors open, she was greeted by the man she would have rather had the fortune to never see again.


End file.
